Meet the Natives
There are three types of internationally valued woodlands in the Core Forest project. Six of the woodland areas are old sessile oakwoods. Four (including a large suite of the sites in the Clyde Valley) are ash and elm-rich ravine woods. One – the Shingle Islands - is the project’s unique example of alder–and-willow-rich alluvial woodland.
Each of these places is special; each wood has its own character. Locally, these Core woods are valued as familiar backdrops (or downdrops for the gorge woods) to settlements, farms, rivers or lochs.
In many cases, direct local involvement with individual woods was limited until the start of the Core Forest work, with notable exceptions such as some of the woods managed by different estates. Now the project has re-connected people and woods at all sites, giving scope for their local relevance to grow in years to come.
Nationally, every Core Forest site is ranked as important on the basis of its nature conservation value. The oakwoods are especially rich in lower plants, such as mosses and liverworts that like mild, moist conditions. The ash-and-elm-rich gorge woods are havens for ferns, mosses and some rare flowering plants. The alluvial woods are rare now in the UK, and are valued for their blend of different vegetation types, from communities that cope with very wet conditions to woodland areas – drier soil and gravel.
Internationally, all of these places are Special Areas of Conservation and part of the EU-wide ‘Natura’ network of important wildlife sites
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